


you can’t wake up, this is not a dream.

by starbucks22



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23818426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbucks22/pseuds/starbucks22
Summary: Life can be a cruel piece of trash, indeed.Bucky Barnes and Clint Barton wanted NOTHING to do with each other, and that’s the honest truth. At first, though neither would admit it, they’d probably rather stick a needle through someone’s eye instead of having a real discussion with one another.But, because life doesn’t like them, they do not get their wish. Instead, through mind control recovery, regaining one’s self, pointless decision making, and a casual fight turned devastatingly personal, they are forced to get along.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes & Natasha Romanov
Kudos: 10





	you can’t wake up, this is not a dream.

**Author's Note:**

> please tell me that my Clint does not come across as MCU Clint because that was not my intention at all
> 
> It wasn’t explicitly mentioned but this Clint is very much deaf (which the movies DID NOT INCLUDE)
> 
> hello I have been working on this for a While can u tell

A few months after discovering that The Winter Soldier is a brainwashed Bucky Barnes- then a few more months after even  that-  Steve Rogers, for once in his life, seems to give up on a fight. He slowly accepts the fact that his long lost BFF will only be found when or if on his own terms. If he doesn’t want to be found, then he won’t be. It’s as simple as as complicated as that.

Of course, because the world is nothing if not a stupid motherfucker that just  delights  itself in screwing with tired superheroes, only a few weeks after the searching stops entirely is when Bucky Barnes decides to make his not-so-public appearance.

Unfortunately, Bucky was running mostly on adrenaline and nerves; super soldier/ex-assassin or not, everyone needs their beauty sleep.

It’s because of this bone deep exhaustion that he just barely takes notice of the lone, half awake archer that’s sprawled haphazardly out on a comfortable, well worn couch. Bucky is pretty dang sure that the blonde, whose taken to flipping lazily through TV channels, has not noticed him as he gamely sticks to the shadows and out of the way.

That is, until the man yawns and sits up. His instincts seem to scream at him that something is just not quite right; the blonde squints suspiciously around the room, well adjusted to the ever worrying feeling that he’s being watched. 

For as skilled as he is, though, Bucky is still faster. 

Bucky is armed to the teeth with two guns, a knife in his metal hand, all of the above glinting as the pale moonlight shines down directly onto them. 

“Is that a knife in your hand,” drawls the now remarkably awake Avenger, “or are you just happy to see me?”

Despite his remark, he straightens even tighter and readies his bow and arrow all the more.

“So, you gonna explain why you’re sneaking into an Avengers tower at,” he eyeballs the gently ticking clock on the wall, using only his peripheral vision to do so, “Two o’clock in the morning?”

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” which is a bald faced lie for more reasons than one. 

“I don’t believe that. And, for the record? I was already awake. So, are you going to explain yourself or not? I’ve been doing a real good job at keeping patient and giving you the opportunity to explain yourself, here.” He tightens his stance, plants his feet firmer into the floor, prepares to shoot- 

“Bucky?”

Aw shit,  Bucky Barnes and Clint Barton think in accidental tandem.  Here we go.  Despite his surprise- the brunette almost can’t believe that he let himself get  distracted-  seeing the familiar face he’s been searching for is enough to get Bucky to stand down. 

Clint, on the other hand, not backing down even in the face of his clearly exhausted Star Spangled Friend, does not. 

“Stand down,” says Steve Rogers once he’s done yawning. He waves a hand in between the two tense men without even stopping to inquire what, exactly, is going on. He just simply says, “Come on, Buck. You can stay with me tonight.”

(If the captain’s eyes sparkle like everything in the world has just gone  right  for what is perhaps the first time in over seventy years, neither of the other two comment on it.)

*****

“Uh, what the fuck, Steve?”

“That’s about what my thought process is right about now,” Clint agrees lowly. “Sam, could you pass me the ketchup?”

Sam Wilson passes on the ketchup without taking his eyes off of the quietly whispering super soldiers, both of which are sitting on the other side of the small kitchen table, chatting away as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Or, rather, one of them is. The other keeps scanning the doorways, the windows, the rapidly multiplying group of people, and even the vents, which are currently empty. He keeps looking up at them as if he’s expecting somebody to pop out and jump-scare him. 

Okay, if Clint wasn’t already sitting across from him, innocently drenching his hash browns with a brand new bottle of ketchup, that might have been a pretty solid theory. Luckily for potentially everyone, the second most likely culprit, Natasha Romanov/Romanoff/whatever-the-heck-her-real-last-name is, is currently fast asleep upstairs, fully trusting that no bullshit is unfolding downstairs while her watchful eyes aren’t staring everyone down.

For once, she’s wrong. 

“So, are we just not going to discuss this?” wonders Sam rightfully. He not-so-subtly side eyes Bucky as he says, “We’ve been searching the whole world for this guy, ran around Europe non stop for three long months, and he just pops onto y’alls doorstep in the middle of the night without so much as a hello?”

“That adds up, yeah. I was watching TV in the living room earlier this morning- infomercials are only slightly less obnoxious when there’s nothing else on, by the way- was just having a grand ol’ time right up until Mr. I’m Not Dead After All decided to try and get the jump on me. Didn’t even say hi. How  rude,”  Clint replies. He shrugs and reaches past Tony, whose’s so incredibly sleep deprived that he’s not accepting all of this without so much as a snarky remark, for a quart of orange juice. 

“Actually, they all have a point,” Steve agrees around a crunchy looking piece of toast. It’s the first time all morning that he’s paid attention to the other’s conversations. For that matter, it’s the first time he’s even addressed the rest of the table’s members. He’s been so lost in his own world up until now that he hasn’t really cared much about anything around him, but nobody’s really blaming him for it. “You never did say why you’re here, Buck. I wanted to ask you earlier, but... sleep.”

“You willingly trying to incorporate a decent sleeping schedule is a true miracle,” remarks Sam with a teasing smirk aimed at his best friend, who only rolls his eyes and bites down into his breakfast.

“Here to see you,” Bucky speaks up dully, in a oh so familiar tone of ‘ how are you this fucking dense, Rogers?’

Before the blonde can even attempt to start racking his brains in a response to that, Natasha comes stomping down the stairs in a very loud, incredibly obvious, very un-Natasha like way. 

It takes the tired group of superheroes a few seconds to realize that the gun she’s casually handling is probably not a sign of goodwill.

“Natty,” begins Clint, who has the most experience in all things related to the redhead, as he rises to his feet. “Nat. Slow your roll, everything is fine. We don’t want any murder at the breakfast table, okay? You don’t need to shoot.”

“That doesn’t mean that I  won’t,”  she grumbles out bitterly. It’s true. But here’s the thing- despite the fact that she kind of wants to, she knows very well that she shouldn’t risk it. Bucky Barnes is Bucky Barnes, of course, but right up until a few months ago, Bucky Barnes was also the mother fucking  Winter Soldier.  Brainwashed or not, those kind of heavy hitting instincts and training don’t just go away at the drop of a hat. Surveying the group, the woman grumpily asks, “Why are you all so calm about this?”

“Oh,” squeaks out Tony, in a high pitched sort of way like someone who’s just forgotten something incredibly important. Like someone who has just remembered the thing they, unfortunately, spaced out on. “I forgot. I was notified the second he entered the building. Big, Bad, and Russian- the male version, anyway- must have forgotten to take out the security cameras when he first got here. Pretty sure Friday never went offline, either.”

“I doubt that he’d forget,” Clint argues dispassionately, as if none of this is anything to be concerned about. As if he’s just simply discussing the weather or something else terribly mundane. “That was probably done deliberately so we wouldn’t come in all gun’s a’ blazing.” He pauses, side eyes his best friend, who has yet to ease her way out of her tense defensive position. “Well. As  much,  anyway. Stand down, Nat, we’re all fine.”

“He’s  dangerous,”  she hisses out pointedly, apparently not very reassured by the calm, matter-of-fact down that Clint is adopting. “As soon as he decides that he doesn’t want any of us alive anymore, we’ll all be dead within minutes. Seconds, maybe.”

“Okay, but clearly that’s not on the agenda right now. If he wanted to do that, we’d already be dead.”

“How do we know that he’s entirely out of his programming? What if some of it still lingers and he attacks us? What then?” Natasha counters, one hand on her hip as the other hand cradles her weapon even tighter, like it’s the lifeline she seems so sure it might end up having to be. 

“Again, that’s clearly not the case. Look, I’ll prove it right now.”

“Clint, what are you-“

“Hey, Barnes!” Clint turns away from the group, and, in an up close and personal showing of his abysmal lack of self perseveration skills, gets out of his seat, pulls up a chair, and sits down in the empty chair on Bucky’s right side. “You aren’t going to go around attacking any of us, are you?”

The man blinks, not anticipating the blunt question: “Uh. No.”

“Problem solved!” 

“That is  not  how you solve a problem,” Sam, whose been mostly quiet up until now, protests firmly. “And Natasha has a point about the programming. It’s not like we’re going to know what to do if whoever the fuck’s been messing around inside his head decides that it’s a smart idea to take on all of the Avengers.”

Clint shrugs. “That’s exactly it, though. He’s tough,  clearly,  but it would be one against six. Count in a bunch of hidden suits, near indestructible defense systems, sneaky surprises, whoever we can get for backup, and we’re all set.” He shoots a look at the man beside him. “I still doubt we’ll need to do that, though.”

“That’s... not the  worst  plan in the world,” the newer Avenger concedes as he reaches forward to grab at a slice of bacon. “You got a backup plan?”

“No. If my first plan doesn’t work, then I guess we just slap him upside the head really hard. How could that  possibly  go wrong?” He shrugs. It doesn’t escape any of their notices,  especially  not Thor’s, how he clams up almost instantly after speaking. (If you can count stuffing your face full of breakfast foods as clamming up, anyway.)

The whole table, excluding Bucky himself who’s kind of confused and kind of really doesn’t care, stares. 

“I don’t think this is exactly the same-“ begins Steve wearily, but he’s interpreted by a frowning Sam.

“Am I missing something here?” 

“Exactly how much research have you done on me?” asks their resident archer through a mouth full of pancakes. The words come out so jumbled it’s a miracle that anyone can really comprehend them at all. 

“Not much, if any at all. All I needed to know is that your name is Clint Barton, your primary weapon is a bow and arrow, and that you’re a part of the main Avengers team. One of the original members. I didn’t really look into it all that much- I was kind of focused on my own ‘initiation’ of sorts.”

“Then yes,” he concludes with a nod, “You’re missing something here.”

“Are you... going to clarify?”

“No.”

And that was that.

*****

Bucky does not expect himself to accidentally become friends with Clint Barton, but that’s exactly what he ends up doing. 

It all starts with a midnight trip into the most commonly accessed kitchen for a glass of water.

“What’s got you up so late?” Clint mumbles sleepily. So far this has already been the second time that Bucky has encountered the man while the archer in question is half awake, blearily rubbing at his eyes as he chugs half of a full pot of coffee. It would be almost impressive if it wasn’t almost concerning. “It’s got to be around eleven o’clock at night by now.”

“It’s later than that. It’s around midnight now. So, why are you awake this late?”

“I asked you first,” the blonde points out petulantly. He drops some more of the beloved coffee into his mouth.

“You do know that there’s coffee cups in the top shelf over there, right? I have a feeling that Stark isn’t going to scream bloody murder if you pretend to be a normal person.”

“Nah, I know,” replies Clint, who’s apparently not even going to question the ‘act like a normal person’ comment. “I just prefer drinking it this way.”

“And what way is that? Drinking it by the... pot full?”

“It’s quicker. It helps me when I can’t sleep.”

“How?” wonders Bucky, who’s staring incredulously at the rapidly emptying coffee pot. He could have  sworn  it was filled to the brim just a few minutes ago when he entered the quiet kitchen in the first place. He motions at it vaguely. “That kind of stuff just keeps you awake!”

“Exactly.” Clint held the pot tightly in one hand all the while he’s finger-gunning at the other man with his other. “That’s kind of the entire point, Buckeroo.”

The brown haired man pauses. Shakes his head. “I’m not even going to ask... I’ll just go ahead and assume that you’re not insulting me right now?”

“You’d be correct. It’s just a nickname, nothing bad about it.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Bucky doesn’t mean for his words to come out sounding like an odd non sequitur, but they do.

Clint understands him anyway. “Not really. Do you want to talk about  your  nightmares?” 

“Not really...” he trails off. “Can I have some coffee?”

Clint frowns upon seeing that there is none left. He probably should have seen this coming sooner. “...Maybe I should go make some more.” 

*****

For some reason, for some reason that neither of them could explain, they hang out a lot more after that. Most times it’s not purposeful- some days they’re both totally convinced that they have absolutely  nothing  in common- but they end up in the same place at the same time again and again despite their best efforts to do otherwise. After a while, they just give up. 

They begin seeking each other out instead.

“Do you want to meet my dog?”

Bucky looks up. For the past ten minutes or so, he’s been focusing his glowering back and forth in between a cereal box and a picture-esque bowl of fruit. One thing the future doesn’t tell you to do? How to recover from brainwashing and learning how to make the right choices again- or, no. The issue doesn’t lie within making the correct decisions, whether morally or just over something insignificant, but the issues lies in just re-learning how to make choices  at all.

Especially, in my case,  thinks Bucky,  when the decisions I have to make aren’t even about life or death. 

His mind is, understandably, racing fast enough that it takes a few seconds longer than it usually would for the question to register. “You have a dog?”

“I have the  best  dog,” Clint corrects huffily. (Even though it’s clear just by his tone of voice that he is not actually upset, at all.) “You’re going to love him.”

“Him,” he repeats. “What’s his name?”

“Lucky. He’s great... speaking of Lucky, I just realized that he’s probably with Katie-Kate... you up to meeting someone today? A human someone, I mean.”

“Who’s Kate?”

Clint grins, true and proud of his young protege. “She’s Hawkeye,” he says as if this explains everything. 

“But you-“

“Am also Hawkeye, yes. There’s two of us. She’s the better one.”

Bucky simply smirks. “I’ll be the judge about that, but I like the one in front of me well enough. I mean, sure, he’s a bit of an idiot sometimes-“

“Hey-“

“But I’m sure you already know that I’m well versed in dealing with lovable idiots.”

(The second, indignant sounding “Hey!” comes from Steve, who’s busy getting punched in the face by Thor. Hopefully, the two original Avengers are sparring. Either way, the bickering duo ignore them.)

“Yeah, well, you haven’t met Kate yet. You don’t know any better.”

“We’ll see about that,” comes Bucky’s vague response as he turns away and resumes his staring of breakfast products.

“What are you doing?”

Next thing he knows, Clint is putting his bow down, (he tends to carry it around a lot, despite the fact that he’s rarely never even on missions unless it’s world ending,) and sitting down beside the brown haired man at the kitchen table. 

“So, what are the options here?” He reaches out at one of the options in front of him, eventually ending up with a pear in his hands.

“Fruit and cereal.”

“Why not just have both?”

Bucky sighs, shaking his head. “I can only have one.”

“No?” Clint replies, appearing confused. “You do know that this tower is like, bizarrely stocked, right? You can have both cereal  and  fruit. Ain’t like it’s any skin off my nose.”

“But I  can’t.  I have to choose one over the other. Just having both would be the easier option, but nooooo, my therapist says I need to learn how to pick one over the other. Having a preference, or something. It’s... harder than I was expecting.”

“And it’s not even important.” 

“Right! It’s not even all that important. It’s not going to have disastrous consequences. Probably.”

“You know,” begins Clint, in a tone of voice that carries a faint air of experience, “That’s probably  why  it’s so difficult to decide. It’s not life or death. You know life and death and you know how to handle that in the heat of the moment, but this isn’t even in the realm of being the same.” He sighs and lets his head fall out of his waiting hands and gently, (by his standards, at least,) onto the marble surface below. “It’s just breakfast.”

“Right,” scoffs Bucky as he mirrors the motion that his friend has just made. “It’s just breakfast.”

A few minutes pass by silently, likely due to the fact that the other residents of the tower are either a: not awake, (Bruce had recently been on a work binge until he had quite literally collapsed due to exhaustion. After that, and after he was able to get up again, he had simply shrugged it off and went back to sleep. Tony was on the same wavelength, there, seeing as he eventually did that exact same thing. Science bro’s indeed,) or b: not even in the building in the first place. (Natasha is on a mission, Sam and Steve are out for an early morning run, and Thor is off doing whatever the heck a Thor does when there isn’t a major battle to be won.) 

Around the ten minute mark of silence, Clint straightens up and his eyes sparkle with the tell tale sign of a new idea. 

Sure enough, he says, “I have an idea.”

“And what is that idea? Is it a bad one? Are you going to get yourself into trouble?”

“I always get myself into trouble, sweetheart,” the blonde winks, but quickly launches into an explanation. “I can just help you narrow it down. You’re still the one in charge, but it might makes things just a tad bit less impossible. What do you say?”

Bucky shrugs. It’s not the worst plan in the world. “Sure, why not?”

“Okay! So, first off: have you ever even tried fruit this century?” 

“You seem to forget the fact that, unlike Steve, I’ve actually been out in the world over the past seventy years. Of course I’ve tried a fruit.”

“Just asking!” Clint replies, putting his hands up in the air in a clear message of, ‘I mean you no harm,’ or: ‘I did not mean to insult you-  this time.’  It’s probably not even necessary, but he’s pretty sure that Bucky would either not appreciate an alien joke,  take me to your leader,  or just straight up wouldn’t understand it. “And no, I didn’t forget that, I just didn’t want to assume anything. I barely even skimmed through your file, for your information, so I don’t know as much as I probably should.”

“I haven’t read your file, either,” admits the older man. “Though I bet it’ll just be full of typical SHIELD agent stuff. A bunch of mission reports, maybe. Actually, speaking of missions-“

“I thought we were trying to help you solve your little food crisis here-“

“-Why have I never seen you go on any missions with the rest of the team? I’ve been here for over three months now, and you just barely leave this place anymore than I do. I’ve seen Natalia literally  drag  you out. By your  hair.”

“That’s quite a feat for her to accomplish, trust me.” They both ignore the way that he self consciously rubs at his head due to the reminder. “My hair isn’t exactly long.” It’s true. Out of the tower’s occupants, his hair is the shortest, which is, oddly enough, a fact that benefits him quite a bit for something so simple. 

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“You’re avoiding your problems.”

“I am not,” huffs Bucky with a murder glare mean enough that almost anyone else would be running from. He then repeats, “You’re avoiding the question.”

“When I do go, it’s only on crucial, oh-shit-we’re-gonna-die-without-Hawkeye, ones.

I don’t go out on missions with the team for anything generally considered minor because I’m still not fully authorized. Plus. I just don’t want to. I got me, my dog, my whiny protege, and an apartment full of tenants to look after. It can’t be all action, all the time.”

“Why aren’t you always authorized?” 

Clint, instead of leaning back on his usual avoidance tactics, just shrugs and answers honestly. (Even if it is kind of vague.)

“Because of the Battle of New York.”

Bucky blinks. Somehow, he was expecting something more dramatic. Lighthearted, maybe? “I thought that was a few years ago, now.”

“You know about it? You’ve done a great job of not acknowledging that, then.”

“What? All I know about it is that there was a battle, obviously here in New York, with aliens. It was Stevie’s first mission in the grand ol’ 21st century.”

“What else do you know about it?”

“That’s it,” he admits. “Oh! Wait.” Bucky straightens up, smiling at the fact that he just remembered something new. “I heard that you guys all fought some nut job that tried to take over the world? Thor’s brother, right?”

“You know more than you let on, then,” is all Clint replies with. He confirms and denies nothing at all, but he doesn’t have to anyway.

“What about Loki?” a now familiar voice calls out as Natasha quietly tiptoes her way into the room, empty mug in hand and protective glint in her eyes. She comes close to slamming the cup down on the counter, clearly displeased, until she catches a look at her, by comparison, entirely calm best friend. “What did he do this time? Is he back on Earth? Do I have to go kill him?”

“He’s not here, Nat.”

She scans the room anyway. “Why are you talking about him? It’s not exactly your favorite pastime.”

“I was asking about New York,” Bucky pipes up, looking a bit uncertain now. He genuinely has no idea why the two agents in front of him seem so tight and on edge all of a sudden. Everything was fine just a few minutes ago! “I guess I shouldn’t have?”

“You’re fine,” they both say in unison, not even looking at him. 

Clint sighs under his favorite redhead’s unyielding gaze. “It’s not that big of a-“

“Choose your next words very carefully, Barton. If you say anything self deprecating or even attempt to brush this off, then I swear that I  will  sic Miss Luna on you.” Natasha’s face is serious. She’s perfectly willing to go through on her threat.

“Uh, who?” Bucky hesitantly asks. He’s not sure if he even wants to know. 

“Clint’s therapist. He doesn’t like her.”

“...Why?”

“Oh, it’s just the principle of the thing. He just doesn’t want any therapist at all, but that particular wish of his is one that he’s not going to get granted for a longggg while.”

“It’s been almost  two years,”  gripes a not truly put out Clint. “Why can’t I just be done with it all already?”

“Talk to the state officials and see what they say.”

“I’ve already tried that, though! Apparently the whole Avenger card doesn’t get you very far in life.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “You can’t play the ‘I save the world’ card when you hardly even leave the tower, idiot.”

“Hey, that’s not-“

“CAN I SEE THE DOG NOW?” inquires Bucky, loudly. He wanted to see Lucky  before  discussing mind control recovery, hidden battle secrets, and bickering best friends. So he’d like to get a move on soon, thank you very much.

“I’m coming with you guys,” the redhead decides with a firm nod, despite the fact that nobody has actually invited her. She quirks a lip at Clint as she says-

“You have a lot of explaining to do with Kate.”

*****

“I AM GOING TO GRAB AN ARROW, STAB YOUR ARM, AND WATCH AS THE REST OF YOUR SO CALLED TEAMMATES RUSH TO SAVE YOUR SORRY ASS. WHEN THEY HIT ME UP, ASKING WHAT THE HECK I WAS THINKING, I’M GONNA TELL THEM THAT THIS WAS ALL. YOUR. FAULT.”

“Hi, Katie-Kate.”

“WHAT THE FUCK, CLINT?”

Clint frowns and opens his arms out wide for a long overdue hug. Still huffing and puffing, but not angry enough to actually deny the affection, the teenager grudgingly accepts it. 

“I’ve missed you,” she grumbles out quietly, quite a noticeable contrast compared with her loud entrance. Once the two are separated, her arms are crossed tightly as she stares down the two men fearlessly.

“You,” she points out the dead silent Bucky, “You look familiar.” She cocks her head to one side as she attempts to study the super soldier, trying her best to decipher just  why  she can recognize the man’s face, but in the end she’s unable to pinpoint where she knows him from. It’s like the equivalent of knowing one or two lyrics to a song but not being able to remember the rest of it for the life of you; like entering a room to grab something but forgetting what it is that you need the second you step through the doorway. “Have we met before?”

Bucky can’t help but mumble out a low, “Gosh, I really hope not.”

“Uh, what?”

“Nothing.” He straightens up and returns back to his hushed state.

“Anyway! Katie, you have my dog. I want to see my dog,” says Clint cheerfully. It’s a mistake- the younger Hawkeye is still deeply displeased with him. 

“Oh hell no. You’ve been gone so long doing whatever the fuck it is that you’ve been doing since 2012 that this dog is  way  more mine than he is yours.”

Clint blinks slowly, visibly a bit confused. “I was here last month?”

“But you never tell me anything, and you’re certainly not around enough to make sure that Lucky here,” she pats the dog- who has seemingly come out of nowhere- on his head. “Gets fed. Actually, come to think of it, I’m not even sure how  you  get fed. You’re a disaster. I’d say the Avengers help with that, but they’re all off on missions, presumably, all the time.”

“They are quite a bit of the time,” he doesn’t deny. “Or doing something strategic. Or training.”

“Or,” begins Bucky, who’s more than ready to rib his friend, (he’s been doing this since he was six years old with a much smaller Steve, and even though  so many things have changed  since then, he can’t really see reason enough to change his whole self with it. After all, his personality and his memories have been ripped away from him many times before. Now that he’s finally at least a quarter of the way himself again, he’s silently resolved that nothing else, outside of the mountains full of trauma he’s had to acquire, has to be any different,) “Just sitting around pouting at the TV like this one here tends to do.”

“I do not!” He says, while pouting.

“Yeah, you do.”

“I don’t!” the blonde protests a second time. “I train on my own time, which you very well know, since you hijack my very innocent attempts to get some practice with my bow and arrow.”

“‘Innocent’ my  ass.  I don’t think there’s much you can do to convince me of that one. I know that my memory isn’t much these days, but still.  You  are the complete opposite of  innocent.”

Clint opens his mouth to speak.

Bucky points a finger at him while chastisingaccusatorially, “One crack about my memory or me ‘being old’ and I’m throwing you on the floor.”

“I’d question this whole dynamic a lot more if I didn’t have seven hundred other questions that you two need to answer right now,” Kate cuts in before Clint can say something foolish and completely lacking any self preservation. Something undoubtably like, ‘Come at me then, coward. I’ll make it up onto the roof before you can even blink twice.’

“Hey dumbass, how about you  not  challenge the Winter Soldier to a fight? I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see you actually end the day with all of your limbs still connected to your body,” Natasha tries to hiss out discretely. Keyword: tries.

Kate, who is cuddling Lucky and watching the trio interact, doesn’t appear to hear a thing. Clint only comprehends anything Natasha says because he’s staring at her lips closely the entire time. 

Bucky, though. He can hear anything that she says. (Super hearing is a bitch sometimes, isn’t it?)

“He wasn’t challenging me to an actual fight,” Clint says casually. 

Natasha pauses for just a second before rolling her eyes and mumbling what was most likely a Russian curse underneath her breath. “It’s hard to tell with him,” she says in what may or may not even be in her own defense. Either way, for a woman who’s going on about how dangerous Bucky is, she doesn’t seem very concerned. “Very hard to read.”

“Well, that’s not wrong,” admits the older Hawkeye. “But Nat, you don’t have to be so worried about me.”

“Why would I be worried about you?” she snarks, but he knows her well enough to find the truth: she cares, and she cares very much. No matter how much she tries to hide it- her actions and even the tone of her voice, betrays her. 

“Shut up. Anyway- there’s nothing to be all stressed out about, okay? It’s just me and my friend who may or may not threaten bodily harm to one another every few days or so. That’s just life! That’s just being an Avenger, actually.” He hums thoughtfully before bending down low to greet his over-enthusiastic dog. It doesn’t seem to help the soothing effect that he had in the first place, if he had any in the first place. “I’m pretty sure that it’s a prerequisite.”

“That, and trauma,” chimes in Kate from the kitchen. When the others turn to see where she had gone, she holds up two fist fulls of something she is likely not allowed to drink. She tips the glasses forward as a silent toast. “Pretty sure all of them have some form of trauma. If one of y’all- and I don’t know if that includes the dude with the long hair or not, we still haven’t been introduced- starts trying to sweet talk me into believing otherwise, I’m calling bullshit.”

She pointedly looks in Clint’s direction as she says that. (And as she hands him a drink, but that’s separate from the point at hand. That point is that you don’t try to lie to Kate Bishop, because even if you wanted to, it doesn’t work.)

“Who’s even a part of the Avengers nowadays? A little birdie told me that there’s some new members on the horizon.”

Natasha, claiming herself as the source of this rumored information, raises her glass. 

“I think that kind of depends,” Clint says. “Not all of us are going at it full time anymore.”

“Like him,” Bucky finds the courage to speak up as he elbows his friend good naturedly.

The older of the two girls nods, elbowing Clint as well. The man awkwardly fumbles his way away from her in response, striking out accurately at her ribs in retaliation. “Yeah. So, Kate, just so you know: Dumbass here, Sam Wilson, and Bucky are part timers.”

“Uh, what?” questions the latter of the two, who looks up as soon as he hears his name. “I’m not even involved in this mess. The Avengers are  your  problem, not mine.”

“You can count if you want to,” she says, her voice unexpectedly soft, almost. “You can do it.”

“I don’t know...” Bucky visibly hesitates. 

“It’ll be fun- okay, well.” Natasha shrugs; she backtracks the moment she realizes that maybe running around and kicking people in the face (and other areas) may not be classified as ‘fun’ for everyone. “Maybe that’s not the best way to word it.”

“I don’t want to fight anyone,” he admits quietly. “I’ve done that for far too long. I don’t know if I can do it again if I don’t absolutely have to.”

“Then don’t,” Clint chimes his way back into the conversation. “It’s up to you.” He inches his way up closer to the other man. He’s looking him dead in the eyes, emotions spread openly across his face. He makes no attempt to hide his sincerity, here. “This is your choice, okay? Don’t do anything at all that you don’t want to do.”

The two of them remain that way for a while- hands clasped, gazing into one another’s eyes, both silent and solemn. 

“I didn’t know Clint Barton could actually be this sweet to someone,” Kate calls out from the background, effectively shattering the moment to pieces. She instantly gets shot three glares, one after the other after the other in rapid succession. She, not so effortlessly, ignores all of the attention that’s casted on her. “Miracles do happen.”

“I helped you enter the oh-so-wonderful world of superheroing, what more do you want from me?” Clint grumps at her, stepping away from the super soldier he’s quite literally had his eyes on. 

“Maybe you actually coming to see Lucky and I more than once in a blue moon? You’re so ‘busy,’” she adds the air quotes in purposefully, “That you’re rarely even here anymore. Maybe if you were around enough to actually  teach me something -“

“I’d be a horrible teacher and you know that-“

“Then  maybe  I wouldn’t be running around this stupid city at night with nothing more than a lousy old bow, some arrows, and my natural good looks.”

Clint sighs, but doesn’t admit defeat... or, at least not out loud, he doesn’t. “Avenge me,” he calls, looking at the space beside him.

“You’re on your own here,” a smirking Bucky responds, clearly enjoying seeing a teenage girl verbally pound on the blonde. “This is too much fun.”

“ Avenge me,”  he repeats, much more dramatically this time.

“Why would I? We’ve established this- that’s your job! Avenge yourself!”

“Defend me, then!”

“Nah,” Bucky replies lazily. “I wouldn’t defend you against a fly.”

*****

“So, Thor’s coming.”

“Is he now?” asks Bucky disinterestedly. He flips a page of the book that he’s been reading. “That’s nice.”

“Yeah, okay. Apparently he’s bringing some of his merry band of pirates here. Who knows, maybe they’ll join the gang,” quips Clint blandly. (He does not clarify that there, most likely, are no actual pirates on their way.)

“And that matters because...?”

“Just thought you’d like to meet Thor is all. He’s rather... nice.”

“You paused,” the brown haired man observes. He still doesn’t look up. “Why.”

“He  is  nice, honestly. I’ve just never really gotten the chance to get to know the guy.”

“That’s because you’re chickenshit,” scolds Natasha as the woman herself flitters her way in and out of the widely spaced living room, looking loose and relaxed. Eventually, she plops herself down gracefully on the mostly vacant, dark grey couch. She leans down to re-do the ribbons on her bright pink pointe shoes, smirking. “That’s why.”

“I am  not.  I just don’t have anything in common with the guy. And even if I did, the last time I saw him was when he was jetting off to Asgard on the real life version of Rainbow Road.”

“What’s Rainbow Road?” questions Bucky, still not looking up. He flips another page.

Clint doesn’t even look in his direction as he solemnly says, “You’re a disgrace to your country.”

“Eh. Wouldn’t be the first time.” 

“I’ll drink to that!” exclaims Natasha, who has suddenly found herself a glass half full of some clear liquid- presumably water, but it’s hard to tell just by the looks of it. She holds the glass up before downing her drink. It’s gone just as suddenly as it arrived in the first place. “So, Clint, because you’re a complete and utter coward when it comes to anything related to feelings-“

“So are you, so don’t even start with me-“

“-I’m going to accompany you to meet Thor when he lands later today,” she finishes, smirking even harder than before. “You’ll just have to deal.”

(So she says, but if Clint had a really good reason not to go, she wouldn’t actually force him into it. Alas, he has nothing.

He’s stuck.)

“Damn you.”

“I’m the best, aren’t I?” Unaffected by her best friend’s ire, Natasha smiles.

*****

Bucky comes home to what is, essentially, uninhibited chaos. 

Earlier in the day, the rest of the Avengers group, (himself, Sam, and some plucky teenager named Peter Parker included,) lounged around waiting for Thor to arrive with who knows how many Asgardians. None of them felt particularly inclined to leave the tower, and were all perfectly content to just lie around and do nothing for the time being, but they all needed something to eat.

Normally, they’d all just order takeout, but Bucky didn’t really care about meeting this ‘Thor’ person, and wouldn’t be very gutted if he missed it, so he offered to go out, get some fresh air, and so much food that it would make a (normal) grown man cry. 

Now, back to the issue at hand. 

Bucky comes home to apocalyptic screeching. He recognizes several voices at once, and is alarmed to realize that this noise is coming from the generally in control Avengers- they’ve seen so much in their line of work that something  seriously  messed up must be occurring- they don’t just go panicking over nothing. Usually, they don’t even fret when they probably  should. 

“CLINT NO!” Sam, sounding fairly confused, is yelling out. 

“Clint, stop!” Steve is half heartedly protesting. “Put your arrows down! He’s not worth it!” He doesn’t even sound convincing to himself. 

“LET HIM DO IT!” screeches out Natasha, Tony, and Bruce in a unstable unison. (This, coming from the totally zen Bruce,  says something.) 

“I wasn’t done talking yet! He’s not staying, let me explain!” Thor wails, but it’s to no avail. 

When Bucky hears the now tell-tale sound of a bow drawing backwards, he leaps into action, a hand itching slowly toward one of his guns. He’s not sure what he’s dealing with, but he figures it’s better to be safe than sorry. 

As he rushes into the living room, he sees quite a scene. Right away, he’s able to pinpoint just exactly  why  everyone is acting like someone is about to commit murder.

It’s because someone just might do it if left unprovoked. 

Clint has his hand wrapped in a death grip around someone’s- Bucky doesn’t recognize’s whose’s- throat. He’s drawing back his bow, more than ready to let it loose, prepared to strike. Behind him stands the rest of the Avengers team, all of which are still yelling and screaming and creating a fuss. 

One of them is totally lost. One of them is trying his hardest to calm everyone down, but that’s not working very well at all. One of them is very oddly apologetic. 

The other three, though? 

They seem to be cheering him on. 

Bucky also notices one more thing, something that could potentially prove important here: despite the fact that Natasha, Tony, and Bruce have their weapons out, none of them are firing. They keep glancing back in forth in between the unknown, flashy man, (green and gold from his head down to his toes. That’s so extra... come on, really?) and the furious Clint. 

They seem to be, of all things, waiting on his say so. 

“Okay, what the fuck?” 

“Help,” calls out both Natasha and Steve, though for wildly different reasons. 

“No, help me!” Steve pushes his way forward, closer to his puzzled, hungry best friend. “Clint is going to kill him.”

He looks over the blonde’s shoulder. Surveys the scene again.

“I can see that,” he agrees. “Why?”

“That’s Loki,” Steve says as if that explains everything. The ‘ duh, you idiot,’  is very familiar and heavily implied in his tone. As if Bucky is deliberately trying to misunderstand this... whatever this actually is. “That’s why.”

“I don’t know who that is. The name sounds familiar, though. It’s been mentioned to me once or twice.”

“Get over here already and do something!” Natasha interjects before he can actually get a word in edgewise. “Barnes, hurry up!”

“I still don’t know what’s going on!” Sam, who is trying to remove himself from the situation as subtly as he can, says. 

Steve ignores him. He ignores almost all of them, actually. He’s so eager to get a handle on the situation that he’d probably be ignoring Bucky, too, if he didn’t have to explain himself. (And the others, of course.)

“That’s Loki,” he repeats. “We fought him at the Battle of New York. He’s Thor’s brother. He tried to steal the Tesseract... is this ringing any bells?” He looks over at his best friend’s face just to see the same ever present confusion placed there. No, this isn’t ringing any bells. And, come to think of it, Bucky isn’t even sure if they really have time for this idle chit chat after all. 

“Yeah, no. I still don’t get it. Usually fighting some petty villain isn’t so... personal to you guys, but here Clint is, three seconds away from wiping this guy off the face of the Earth.”

“That’s because he’s the one who-“ Steve suddenly cuts himself off. His mouth closes with an audible click as his whole body seems to slump. He opens his mouth again to let out a totally defeated sigh. “I forgot,” he moans, eyeing the brown haired man with a startled look that suggests he’s just now realized who he’s talking to. “I’m an idiot.”

“Yes,” comes the effortless reply. It’s like saying ‘the sun is yellow,’ or, ‘the sky is blue.’ “But why this time?”

Natasha interrupts them once again as she lets out a low chuckle. “Rogers, the second you finish that sentence, your boy over there is going to have a gun on Loki in two seconds flat. Speaking of which, Clint! Why aren’t we firing yet?”

The group looks over at Clint, who has his attention spread thin in between Loki and Thor, the latter of which is attempting to prevent his fellow teammate from killing Loki- but, alas, the older Asgardian must have done some sort of verbal misstep, because Clint tenses up even tighter, his fingers twitch, and Thor flings the both of them heavily onto the ground. 

That’s when Steve finally decides, “Fuck it,” and he turns to fully face Bucky. He’s well aware that filling the man in will probably only enhance the violence, but at this point his mentality is somewhere along the lines of, ‘ the sooner it escalates, the sooner it can deescalate.’  He mouths out a quick ‘sorry Clint’ before saying:

“Loki turned Clint against us during a majority of the Battle of New York.”

Bucky stills. “What?”

“What?” echoes Sam incredulously from across the room. He’s not in the same boat here, not even close, but he has a right to be upset just the same. 

Bucky lets out a low, dangerous, (and particularly all-knowing,)  “How?”

The few left that are actually paying any attention to him predictably flounder. No matter- he has all the answers that he needs now. 

Or so he hopes. He doesn’t really want to shoot a man over a guess. 

“Clint!” he yells out, unsure if his voice is even going to get across to his friend right now- he knows just what mindset the blonde is in, and how hard it can be to break out of it. But still, he tries.

Plus, if he doesn’t, he’s pretty convinced that the man will either a: get into a wrestling match with Thor, b: get into a fight with Loki, or the likely option c: all of the above. 

“CLINT,” he shouts out, trying to make sure that his voice rises above the others the best that he can. Which, considering the fact that he’s used to being quiet and in the shadows instead of shouting just to be heard, is not as loud as he would like.

Natasha is the first one to catch on to the fact that Bucky has a plan, no matter how flimsy it actually is. She quiets down just slightly; it’s enough, though, for some of the others to follow along with her example.

When Clint finally seems to acknowledge the fact that there’s other people in the room other than himself and the two in front of him, (which, oddly enough, is not due to the chaos around him- it’s due to the group  quieting,  of all things,) his eyes almost instantly flutter over to Bucky’s.

(Could that potentially be because Bucky decided he was too far away from Clint, and made up his mind to move closer? Yes. Did either of them care? No, not really.)

“Are you going to kill him?”

Bucky pauses. Wow. He had not meant to say that out loud.

“I-“

“We’re here with you.” He motions just slightly behind him, at Natasha. “Nobody hurts you and gets away with it. Say the word, and we shoot.”

“Just like that?” is the slightly skeptical, but entirely coherent, reply. 

He nods. “Just like that. Why is even here in the first place?”

“That... was a mistake,” admits Thor, lowering his voice. “You all are aware of how I came here because I had people who needed housing and medical attention for a night or two, correct?”

The group nods.

“Loki was not one of them. He was instructed to stay on the ship. He was being heavily monitored by many eyes. We had many strategies. He somehow disabled the security systems and AI’s just long enough to sneak his way inside... and here we are now. This was all accidental, and I can assure you all that it won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”

Clint surprises them all by dropping Loki onto to the ground. His hand moves forward to grip tightly onto Bucky instead. “It’s not your fault, Thor. I probably should have listened to you instead of trying to throw you through seven floors.”

“You think there’s only seven floors in this building?” asks Tony, who’s been oddly quiet for this whole endeavor. The fact that he’s no longer solemn and silent, though, is a sign that things aren’t so dire anymore. Or at least, not as much. “Seriously? Have you even met me?” 

His sarcastic remark manages to even cast some smiles out of the Avengers, which therefore meant he’s smiling, too. For a few miraculous seconds, everything was calm.

Then, Loki just had to go and open his big mouth.

Nobody, aside from Bucky and Clint, were actually close enough to the man to be able to hear what was said. 

All any of them knew was that one second, the younger of the two began calming down some, and the next, he’s punching Loki in the face without a single shred of remorse.

“We’re doing this now?” asks Natasha as she strikes. 

Bucky hums. Then, he reaches forward and shoots the Asgardian in the foot. (Also without remorse.) He then tosses the gun somewhere over in Tony’s direction; the billionaire finds a place for it right away. 

“Wow,” Clint says, staring. “You weren’t kidding when you said that you’d shoot.”

“I’m never kidding about safety.”

“Really?” he asks drily, raising one eyebrow up in clear, but mild, exasperation. “Last week you said that you ‘wouldn’t defend me against a fly.’ What happened there, huh?”

“Yeah, well.” Bucky pauses, unable to come up with a suitable excuse. He can’t realistically claim that he was just kidding when he said that- which, you know, he actually  was.  He ends up saying something something that went a little like this:

“Yeah, well.” He grins, glad to know that if Clint is joking around with him like this now, things will definitely get better. “I lied.”


End file.
